Greg Hodnett had not been to Victory Lane with the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series in nearly five years entering this week’s event at Williams Grove Speedway in Pennsylvania. He also hadn’t reached the winner’s circle at the famed half-mile since the 2007 campaign. He changed all of that, after battling Stevie Smith and Cody Darrah for the $10,000 top prize on Friday night, leading the final 10 laps to pick up the win.
For Hodnett, the 1993 Kevin Gobrecht Rookie of the Year Award winner, it was his seventh career A-Feature win with the World of Outlaws and his second with the series at Williams Grove Speedway.
“It has been a long, long time since I won an Outlaws race,” said Hodnett in Victory Lane. “Anytime you can win an Outlaws race is great and when you can win it in front of your home fans, it’s even better. All the Pennsylvania guys did really well and we are proud of them. We are very fortunate to be standing up here.”
The race took three starts to get going, with Cody Darrah leading on the initial one with the first caution of the night flying before the lap was completed. On the next start it was Stevie Smith pacing the field into turn one, with the caution again flying. The third start saw Smith again dart to the lead over Darrah and quickly pull away.
On the opening lap, Hodnett got around Keith Kauffman to move into fourth after starting in the fifth position. Hodnett would eventually move into third when Ryan Bohlke fell out with mechanical problems on the 11th lap.
Smith found himself in lapped traffic seven laps into the race and was in heavy traffic on the 12th circuit when a caution flew, giving him clear track to operate with. Darrah looked high in turns one and two on the ensuing restart, but was not able to get enough momentum to make a move on the leader.
By the 17th lap the leaders were back in traffic and Darrah and Hodnett both closed in on Smith. For the next few laps the Top-three ran very close together. On the 21st lap, Hodnett got around Darrah for second and set his sights on Smith. The very next lap he took the lead from Smith on the bottom of turn three.
“I was moving around a little bit,” explained Hodnett. “I didn’t know when the top was blown off enough. The top was pretty low all night and it really wasn’t conducive to run the bottom early. For whatever reason it started getting crumbly off of (turn) two and off of (turn) four. I started getting better drive when I was waiting on it and running the bottom. I just kind of did what the car told me and fortunate for us we are in Victory Lane.”
On the white flag lap, the red flag flew for Lance Dewease who got upside. Since the lap was not complete, a restart was in order and by way of World of Outlaws rules, two full laps had to be completed in succession to end the race, thus extending it to 31 laps. Hodnett wound up leading the final 10 circuits aboard the Macri Concrete JEI.
“We were pretty good and had a good drive off, so if I covered the bottom I figured I would all right,” noted Hodnett of the green/white/checker finish. “I knew Cody (Darrah) was hauling it in a little harder than us, but I knew we had good drive off (the turn). I just tried to calm down and keep it underneath me.”
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